Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly 360 km (224 mi) from the Baltic Sea and 300 km (186 mi) from the Carpathian Mountains. The first recorded references to the city date from the year 1313. It became the capital of Poland during the period of the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania in 1596, replacing Kraków. After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, Warsaw was incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia. It was briefly the capital of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, a French puppet state created by Emperor Napoleon I in 1806. After Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, Warsaw was incorporated into the Russian Empire as part of the so-called "Congress Kingdom of Poland." Germany occupied the city in 1915 during World War I and held it until 1918. As a term of the Treaty of Versailles, the Republic of Poland became an independent state, and Warsaw was designated its capital. The city suffered greatly during World War II. After Polish capitulation in 1939, the Nazis occupied Warsaw and herded the city's entire Jewish population into the Warsaw Ghetto. The inhabitants rose up in rebellion in 1943 to try to prevent their transport to extermination camps but failed. In August 1944, the underground Polish Home Guard rose to try to retake the city as the Red Army advanced toward the city, but the Home Guard also failed. By war's end in 1945, Warsaw lay in ruins. It was rebuilt as the capital of a reconstituted Polish People's Republic, with wholly new borders, in the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union. In 1989, Poland severed all ties with the Soviets, so Warsaw once again became the capital of a truly independent state. thumb|center|400px Warsaw in The Hot War Warsaw was one of several cities in the Soviet sphere of influence the United States bombed with ordinary explosives on the night of 24 February 1951.Bombs Away, pg. 121. Warsaw in Joe Steele As Poland's capital, Warsaw was central to the beginnings of World War II.Joe Steele, pg. 206, 212, HC. After Poland fell to Germany and the Soviet Union in September, 1939, Warsaw was under Germany's rule, and remained so even after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In 1945, Warsaw fell to the victorious Soviet Union, which had defeated Germany.Ibid., pg. 296. Warsaw in Southern Victory Warsaw had been a Russian city until the German Army captured it during the Great War. It was then established as the capital of the newly "liberated" Kingdom of Poland in 1916. Warsaw was the target of an ultimately unsuccessful drive by the Russian Army in 1942.Drive to the East, pg. 284, pb. Warsaw in The War That Came Early Warsaw didn't see much action in the Second World War until after the Soviet Union declared war on Poland in December, 1938. In the wake of the Polish Air Force's successful raid on the Russian cities of Minsk, and Zhytomyr, the Soviet Air Force bombed the Polish capital in retaliation.Hitler's War, pg. 237, tpb. Warsaw was a continued target of Soviet advance and bombardment throughout 1939.West and East, pg. 326, 332-335. However, German and Polish forces were able to keep the Soviets out of the city. Even Joseph Stalin had to admit by the end of 1939 that the drive on Warsaw was going much slower than he wanted.Ibid., pg., 422. In 1940, the so-called "big switch brought Britain and France into an alliance with Poland and Germany against the USSR, and soon the Red Army was rapidly retreating away from Warsaw and into Soviet territory.The Big Switch, pg. 314, tpb. While the alliance proved short-lived, and the Soviets were making their way west again by 1943, Warsaw was never threatened again for the duration of the war.Last Orders, pg. 174, tpb. Warsaw in Worldwar Warsaw was occupied by the Germans at the beginning of World War II. A rebellion of Poles and Jews helped the Race drive the Germans out in the summer of 1942. Warsaw remained under the Race's control after the Peace of Cairo and was the administrative center of their Polish colony until the city was destroyed by a German explosive-metal bomb during the invasion of Poland, the event that started the disastrous Race-German War of 1965. References Category:Polish Cities Category:National Capitals in Europe Category:German Cities Category:Russian Cities Category:The Hot War Category:Joe Steele Category:Southern Victory Category:The War That Came Early Category:Worldwar Category:Places Subjected to Atomic Bombing in Worldwar